


two of cups

by baeconandeggs, punkrightnow



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Crack, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24312415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeconandeggs/pseuds/baeconandeggs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrightnow/pseuds/punkrightnow
Summary: It takes a couple of tarot cards, a lot of money, and alotof patience to get it through Baekhyun's thick skull that Chanyeol is in love with him.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 160
Kudos: 598
Collections: BAE2020





	two of cups

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** BAE060  
>  **Disclaimer: baeconandeggs/the mods is/are not the author/s of this story. Authors will be credited and tagged after reveals.** The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> **Author's Note:** Writing this fic was such a wild ride - it went from university AU to high school AU to whatever it is now, changed genres multiple times, and missed the deadline by two whole days (sorry and thank you mods!!). But I had a lot of fun with it, and I love BAE to pieces, so overall I'm just super, super happy to finally participate this year!
> 
> Thank you to [moonfishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonfishes), for putting up with me, giving me great last-minute advice, and (I quote) 'speaking this fic into existence'; S, for her magic compliments, ever-helpful input, and dumb theories about my dumbest jokes; my prompter, for submitting such a fun prompt to begin with (hopefully you don't mind the crack!); and of course the mods, who deserve so much love for always running this fest so wonderfully.
> 
> Happy reading!

When Chanyeol is four years old, he sees Baekhyun laughing from across the kindergarten and falls in love.

When Chanyeol is seven years old, they declare themselves officially Best Friends Forever. This means playing together on the weekends, having sleepovers, and always pairing up in PE.

When Chanyeol is eleven years old, he learns that it’s possible to like boys _that_ way, too. When he’s not careful, he catches himself thinking about Baekhyun’s smile, or letting his hand linger a little too long.

When Chanyeol is fourteen years old, Baekhyun comes out—as a hopeless fortune-telling addict. Chanyeol listens to rants about astrology, rolls his eyes, and tries not to be too disappointed that Taurus and Sagittarius aren’t compatible.

When Chanyeol is sixteen years old, he writes songs. Sometimes Baekhyun sings them, holed up in Chanyeol’s bedroom, not realising that the pretty eyes in the lyrics are his.

When Chanyeol is eighteen years old, they go to college. It’s the same college, the same degree, the same passion for music; in between parties and late-night jam sessions, Baekhyun feels closer than ever.

When Chanyeol is twenty years old, Baekhyun gets a girlfriend. He feels farther than ever.

When Chanyeol is twenty two years old, producing his first professional song, Baekhyun comes out—as bi, this time. Chanyeol watches from his studio as Baekhyun graduates, gets certified, and dates strangers. It seems too late for anything now.

When Chanyeol is twenty six years old, he sees Baekhyun laughing from across a classroom and remembers himself. They’re adults now—Baekhyun is a music teacher, Chanyeol is a producer—but in that moment, nothing has changed. He’s still in love.

When Chanyeol is twenty seven years old, he is desperate. And you know what they say about times and measures.

If Baekhyun would stop getting black-out drunk, he might’ve been able to trace it all back to the aftermath of his twenty eighth birthday.

It is midnight in Baekhyun’s tiny apartment, and Chanyeol has just finished hauling him home and forcing him through his basic hygiene routine. (“You’re his best friend, right? Pretty sure that makes him _your_ job,” Baekhyun recalls Sehun saying at the bar about an hour ago, ignoring Chanyeol’s protests.) Baekhyun, on the other hand, is still woefully wasted, meaning that he’s been rambling for hours and not likely to shut up anytime soon.

“—and you’ll never—” He hiccups. “—believe what these goddamn kids did next, I swear, they started swordfighting with the fucking—” He hiccups again, woozy. Must be all the talking. Or the alcohol, he supposes. “—bass recorders, which is _definitely_ Sagittarius behavior, no offense—” He hiccups again. Distantly, he hears Chanyeol sigh and stand up, and the tinkling of water poured into a glass. “—and if either of them ‘forgets’ to wash a recorder again, I’m gonna shove the damn thing up—”

“Drink some water, man,” Chanyeol interrupts wearily, pressing something cold and solid into his hands. Baekhyun looks down, wrinkles his nose, and hiccups again.

“Fine,” he says, already forgetting what he was talking about.

It’s been a good day. The sting of approaching his thirties aside, Baekhyun actually feels pretty content; spending time with friends always makes him happy (as does alcohol), and spending time with Chanyeol doubly so (also alcohol). _Friendship truly is magic,_ he reflects wisely. He’s glad to be getting older this way.

By the time he’s finished with his water and his thoughts, Chanyeol has somehow teleported to the door, where he’s now shrugging on a coat and reaching for his shoes…crap, _leaving,_ Baekhyun realises.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he says hurriedly, putting the glass down. Chanyeol turns, eyebrows raised. “You can’t leave yet, it’s my _birthday!_ C’mon, let’s celebrate, let’s watch a movie or something!”

Chanyeol lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Baekhyun, do you know what time it is?”

Baekhyun frowns. “Nighttime?” he guesses.

“It’s one AM,” Chanyeol says flatly. “And I’ve been celebrating with you since literally the afternoon.”

“Damn,” Baekhyun says, blinking. Yeah, he does remember something like that, now that he thinks about it. “That’s a lot of time.”

Chanyeol gives him an unimpressed look, shakes his head, and turns wordlessly back to his shoes.

“Okay, okay, but,” Baekhyun tries again, grasping for excuses—suddenly he just doesn’t want Chanyeol to leave. He only has an hour left to live? No, too dramatic. He won’t talk to Chanyeol for a week if he leaves now? No, that’s just false. What about— _aha!_ He leans forwards, a cunning gleam in his eyes.

“If you leave now,” he says, trying his best to sound mysterious and beguiling, “you’ll never hear about all the juicy teacher gossip going on right now.”

The look Chanyeol gives him this time is exasperated but fond. “You do realise that Kyungsoo is the only one of your colleagues that I actually know, right?” he says, looking amused despite himself. After a conflicted pause, he turns away from his shoes entirely, leaning against the door with a smirk. “Go on then, what other last-ditch tricks did you have up your sleeve?”

Baekhyun furrows his brow, thinking. “Uh, if you leave, I’ll…steal your motorcycle?”

“Sounds pretty illegal.”

“Then…wanna have a jam session, like in college?”

“At one AM?”

“Oh, I know,” Baekhyun says, brightening, “Iron Man is coming!”

Chanyeol snorts. “I don’t even know a five year old who would fall for that.”

Baekhyun groans, falling back in his chair. “Then,” he says desperately, “wanna…wanna, I dunno, talk about my soulmate reading with Yixing yesterday?”

For some reason it seems like the wrong thing to say. Chanyeol tenses, jaw setting, a dark look crossing his face. Baekhyun blinks—does Park Chanyeol actually look _grim,_ for once? “Nevermind, you’re hopeless,” he jokes without feeling, shoving his feet mechanically into his shoes.

“Woah, woah, what’s so bad about fortune-telling?” Baekhyun asks, bewildered.

“The fact that it’s bullshit?” Chanyeol’s voice is oddly hard.

“Come on, you know that’s not the point.”

“Sorry, I just—” Chanyeol cuts off, looking frustrated. He runs a hand through his hair, glaring at the floor; if Baekhyun didn’t know better, he’d say that he was mad at himself. “I dunno, is this soulmate thing really that important to you?”

 _Not really, to be honest,_ Baekhyun thinks. He goes to Yixing’s more to socialize than for fortune-telling nowadays; they’ve been friends since college, after all. And even if twenty eight isn’t exactly _old,_ he’s not as idealistic as he used to be. Soulmates are somewhat beyond him.

But Chanyeol’s eyes are just so bizarrely somber, and Baekhyun doesn’t want to weigh them down with that kind of talk. So, instead:

“Of course,” he laughs, keeping his voice light. “Don’t you remember my soulmate phase back in high school? Hell, I’d probably even date _you,_ if Yixing told me to.”

The reaction that he was hoping for—an eye-roll, some laughter, mock disgust—is not exactly the one that he gets.

“Oh, right,” Chanyeol says in an odd voice, after a long pause. “Right, yeah, that makes sense.”

“…Chanyeol?” Baekhyun asks, somewhat apprehensive.

Chanyeol startles. He has this look to him that Baekhyun isn’t entirely sure how to categorise: hope? Shame? Something else entirely? “Yeah, I, uh—sorry, I really do have to go,” he says sheepishly.

Baekhyun pouts. “Are you _sure_ you can’t stay for longer? It’s not like you have a very strict schedule—”

“No, uh, I do,” Chanyeol says quickly. “Have to go, I mean. Sorry.”

With that, he snatches his bag from the floor, hurries out, and closes the door behind him with a hasty slam.

 _That was weird,_ Baekhyun thinks, too perplexed to even be disappointed that he’s left. _I should probably try to figure out what’s going on—it’s always awful seeing Chanyeol upset._

Then he returns his glass to the sink, stumbles into bed, and wakes up the next morning with a crushing hangover and no memory of the incident whatsoever.

It’s his next fortune-telling session with Yixing when things start to get more memorably weird.

“Wait,” Baekhyun says sharply. “Hold on, go back a bit. _What_ did you just say?”

Yixing, sitting across from him with a tarot deck in his hands, blinks innocently. “That the stars will be working in your favour this week?”

“No, no,” Baekhyun says, waving his hand impatiently. He might’ve imagined it—he wouldn’t be surprised if the scented candles were hallucogenic—but he’s _pretty_ sure that Yixing just said… “That stuff about my soulmate. Being a tall male fire sign. And real.”

“Ah,” Yixing says, nodding wisely. “You see, the Nine of Pentacles that you pulled, which of course symbolises abundance, led me to believe that your soulmate would have an abundance of height, and—”

“Yeah, okay, sure,” Baekhyun interrupts, “but why are you, like…actually giving me _specific information?”_

Yixing mutters something that sounds strangely like ‘abject poverty’ under his breath before shrugging and continuing to shuffle, seemingly unbothered. “The cards decided it was time,” he says airily. “You know as well as me, they can be quite fickle.”

Baekhyun frowns. It’s true, he supposes, but Yixing has literally gone from ‘ah yes, you will love your soulmate very much!’ to ‘your soulmate is tall, male, and born in this precise quarter of the year.’ _Maybe he’s found a different deck-cleansing method?_ he thinks dubiously.

“Fair enough,” he admits, “but I don’t know, are you really sure that—”

“Baekhyun,” Yixing cuts in, sounding serious. His face flickers in the candlelight, grave and mystical, looking every part the esoteric fortune-teller. “Do you trust me?”

Baekhyun gulps, thinking of college, when he and Yixing would cover for each other if they had to skip class. “Yes.”

Yixing’s face relaxes. “Then just take my advice, okay? Even if the reading isn’t totally, ah, accurate, I think that Ch—that a tall male fire sign would be good for you.” He leans forward, looking sincere. “Will you trust me on this?”

 _What the hell is that supposed to mean?_ Baekhyun wonders, baffled, but he really does trust Yixing, so… “Yeah, sure,” he says helplessly.

Yixing grants him a satisfied smile, then glides onto the next topic so swiftly that Baekhyun has no time to think on it further. They talk about his horoscope, health, and lucky numbers, then go off on a few tangents about old memories and Yixing’s dancing career. By the end of the session, Baekhyun’s in high spirits, barely even blinking when Yixing calls out a quick ‘don’t forget about your soulmate!’ as he leaves.

“A tall male fire sign,” he mutters again. “Damn.”

The next he hears about it is from Chanyeol, oddly enough, as he’s being picked up from school to go get dinner with Sehun.

“Sup,” Baekhyun greets amiably as he walks towards the entrance. It’s five PM, meaning that the school is empty save for staff, and Chanyeol can wait out front without a bunch of primary school kids hollering ‘STRANGER DANGER’ at him.

Chanyeol looks up, taking out his earphones. “Sup.”

They fall into step, walking wordlessly to the bus stop. Chanyeol comes by so often that he can lead the way with ease; he’s been doing it pretty much ever since Baekhyun started working here, after all. It’s gotten to the point that most of the staff at least dimly recognize him as ‘that guy who Baekhyun _’, the blank ranging from ‘is friends with’ to ‘is fucking’ to ‘probably owes a lot of money’.

“So,” Chanyeol says, sounding strangely nervous, “how was your, uh, fortune-telling thing the other day?”

Baekhyun raises an eyebrow. “Kind of a weird topic to start with, don’t you think?”

“Not really, I’m just asking about your week,” Chanyeol says defensively. “It’s a normal way to make conversation, you PUBG shut-in.”

“PUBG has no bearing on my social skills,” Baekhyun says, rolling his eyes. “And anyway, since when are you so interested in fortune-telling?” He grins. “Don’t tell me you’re converting?”

Chanyeol makes a face. “I already told you, there’s nothing to convert _to._ According to the laws of goddamn science—” Baekhyun gives him a meaningful look, and he cuts off. “I was just curious,” he mutters sullenly, the spitting image of one of Baekhyun’s seven-year-olds in detention.

Baekhyun takes pity on him. “It was fine,” he says, shrugging. “We just talked about a couple of Yixing’s dancing jobs and stuff. I’m happy he’s been more successful lately, I was getting worried—part-time fortune-telling isn’t enough to make a living on its own, you know.”

Chanyeol looks weirdly guilty for a moment. “Damn, yeah, that’s great,” he says, “but I was kind of wondering more about the, uh, readings…?”

“Again, since when are you so interested in fortune-telling?” Baekhyun snorts, amused. “I don’t know what to tell you, it was pretty standard stuff. It’s a Capricorn moon right now, so—” Suddenly he stops, fist dropping onto his palm. _“Ah!”_

“What, uh, what is it?” Chanyeol asks, strange nervousness resurfacing.

“There _was_ something interesting about last session, actually!” Baekhyun exclaims. Right, how could he forget? “Yixing gave me this, like, really specific information about my soulmate. He’s never done that before, it was super weird.”

“O-oh?” Chanyeol says, straightening up for some reason. “What, um, information?”

“It was…uh…” Baekhyun trails off, frowning. Chanyeol is facing stiffly forwards, craning his neck as if to be taller. _What’s he looking at?_ Baekhyun wonders, confused, then remembers that he’s halfway through a sentence. “Tall, male, and born under a fire sign, I think.”

“Tall, huh? And male? And a fire sign?” Chanyeol echoes, neck stretching further. Baekhyun squints into the distance, trying to follow his line of sight.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun says distractedly. “Tall male fire sign, that’s it.” _Hm,_ he thinks suddenly, _why does that sound familiar? Tall male fire sign…tall male fire sign…_ Then it hits him.

“Dude.” He whirls around to face Chanyeol, eyes wide. “Shit, what if it’s…” He trails off. No, it couldn’t be.

“Y-yeah?” Chanyeol says, gulping. They lock eyes; Chanyeol’s expression is a strange blend of hope and fear.

“What if it’s, like…” Baekhyun starts again, reluctant to finish the thought aloud.

“You can say it,” Chanyeol murmurs, not looking away from Baekhyun for even a second.

“I mean, you know…what if it’s…” Baekhyun’s voice catches in his throat. It doesn’t seem right, it doesn’t seem possible, but _what if,_ what if it’s… _“Sehun?”_

Chanyeol’s still staring at him, smiling gently. “Yeah, I’ve always—” Then he breaks off, horrified. “Wait, _what?”_

Baekhyun looks down, suddenly embarrassed for even bringing it up. “I mean, he’s tall, he’s a guy, he’s an Aries…I’ve never really thought of him that way, but if Yixing—”

“It’s not Sehun,” Chanyeol interrupts. Baekhyun startles, surprised by the firmness in his voice. Chanyeol’s face is grave, usually bright eyes gone hard and serious. _Oh right, Sehun’s practically his little brother,_ Baekhyun realises, cringing inwardly. _It must be super awkward to hear me talk about him like this._

“Sorry, yeah, you’re right,” he says apologetically.

Chanyeol blinks, the look dissipating. “I-I am?”

“Yeah. Come on, let’s not talk about this anymore. Fortune-telling doesn’t mean anything anyways, right? I doubt it’s that important.”

A complicated mixture of emotions cross Chanyeol’s face in rapid succession, overall resulting in something like anguished constipation. Baekhyun winces; next time, he won’t bring it up it all. They move onto miscellaneous topics until the bus comes, Baekhyun carefully avoiding any mention of either height or astrology.

The restaurant is good, and Sehun as charmingly deadpan as ever. Only Chanyeol seems a little quieter than usual, his laughter more subdued, his smile dimmer. Baekhyun watches him, worried, and resolves to forget the soulmate thing entirely.

 _No fortune-telling is worth Chanyeol’s happiness, after all,_ he reflects.

Yixing does not particularly seem to agree.

“According to the King of Cups you’ve just drawn—”

“Yixing, I already told you, I don’t want to hear it—”

“—representing wisdom, sometimes even divinity—”

“Yixing, for the last time—”

“—your soulmate may resemble a figure such as the Buddha—”

“Dude, _stop,_ I’m literally a paying customer—”

“—by which I mean he will likely have very funny ears.”

That shuts Baekhyun up.

He stares incredulously at Yixing. Yixing gazes back, the picture of serenity. “Excuse me?”

“He will have very funny ears,” Yixing repeats, sounding so irrevocably certain that Baekhyun finds himself struggling to argue.

“No, but…” he tries to start, then fades into silence as Yixing stares him down. It’s strange; usually Yixing reminds him of some kind of wise, peaceful sheep, but today he feels more like a lion. “Nevermind,” he finishes, slumping in defeat.

Yixing gives him a look as if to say ‘that’s what I thought’ and moves on, leaving Baekhyun dazed, embarrassed, and thinking very strange things about the Buddha.

He’s rewatching _Empire Strikes Back_ with Chanyeol for probably the hundredth time when it occurs to him next.

They’re sitting side by side on Baekhyun’s run-down couch, Baekhyun nestled comfortably against Chanyeol’s side. The TV screen flashes green and blue as a young Luke waddles around Dagobah, tired, irritable, and endearingly stupid.

“Now all I gotta do is find this Yoda…if he even _exists_ ,” they mimic together, somewhat derisively. They’ve had this movie night tradition for so long now that if they tried, they could probably recite the entire trilogy from memory.

Baekhyun is silent for a while, watching contentedly as Luke bumbles through his first interactions with a tiny, froggy Yoda. Then, because he can only go so long without some kind of chaos: “Okay, for real though, would you bang Luke?”

Predictably, Chanyeol splutters. _“What?”_

“It’s a fair question,” Baekhyun says innocently.

“Dude, why—I don’t—that’s not—I mean, maybe,” Chanyeol stammers, each word seeming to fluster him further. Baekhyun doesn’t even need to turn to know that his face is burning; Chanyeol’s always been easy to make fun of.

“So you _are_ into twinks, then,” he mutters under his breath, just loud enough for Chanyeol to hear. He laughs when the inevitable punching begins; Chanyeol’s also always been quick to violence. “Ow, ow, stop!”

Chanyeol stops, letting out an anguished groan instead. “God, why am I friends with you again?”

“Because of your insatiable twink fetish,” Baekhyun responds without hesitation, delighted when he turns to see that Chanyeol’s ears have gone a brilliant chilli-red.

“Will you shut up,” Chanyeol groans, burying his face in his hands. “It’s not like you can talk, anyway. You’re probably into, like, _Yoda._ ”

Baekhyun cackles. “Ooh, yes, I love his ears,” he mock-swoons. Chanyeol gives him a withering look. _Wait…ears?_ he thinks, frowning. And then— “Holy shit, wait, I just remembered, Yixing said my soulmate would have weird ears!”

Dimly, he feels Chanyeol tense, but he’s too excited to pay it much attention.

“Oh, really?” Chanyeol asks, somewhat warily.

“Yeah!” Baekhyun says, movie forgotten. He sits up, turning to face Chanyeol with bright eyes. “Dude,” he breathes, “what if my soulmate’s an _alien?”_

Chanyeol’s face is unreadable. “An…alien,” he echoes. “Like, are you seriously considering this, or…”

“I mean, think about it,” Baekhyun gushes, immediately abandoning all common sense because _aliens,_ man, “we don’t actually know when they’ll contact us, right? It might not be that far away. Hell, it might’ve already happened! What if my soulmate is waiting for me in Area 51, right this moment—”

“You’re insane,” Chanyeol interrupts, his smile weary but affectionate.

Baekhyun just laughs, burrowing back into Chanyeol’s shoulder. Moments like this, he’s always grateful to have a friend like Chanyeol: someone who he can tell whatever bullshit pops into his head, and make fun of whenever he feels like it. Someone he can be himself around, he supposes.

“You know,” Chanyeol says hesitantly nearly twenty minutes later, as Yoda spouts knockoff Taoism to get Luke to lift his damn X-wing, “you’ve nicknamed me Yoda before.”

“Uh-huh,” Baekhyun says distractedly, trying not to tear up. It’s stupid, but the music in this scene always gets him.

“For my ears. Because they’re, uh, like Yoda’s.”

“Yeah, and?” Baekhyun is sniffling now.

There is a long, gloomy sigh from beside him, and then a rustling as Chanyeol reaches for a tissue. “No, nevermind.”

“Okay,” Baekhyun says, taking it gratefully.

They finish the movie with more tears, some laughter, and a whole lot of jeering at the whole I-am-your-father routine. Afterwards, Baekhyun sees Chanyeol to his motorcycle, conversation forgotten; it’s all kind of merged into a general memory of warmth and Chanyeol, at this point.

 _Friendship truly is magic,_ he thinks as Chanyeol drives away, then frowns at a sense of deja-vu he can’t quite place.

Seventy eight tarot cards lie in an arc on the table. Baekhyun closes his eyes, reaches out, and lets intuition guide his hand to a card on the left. He pulls.

He flips it over. “The Four of Swords,” he reads aloud, frowning. “What does that mean again?”

Yixing stares at it. “Ferrets,” he says solemnly.

Baekhyun blinks. “Come again?”

“It means ferrets,” Yixing repeats, as if this is a completely normal thing to say. “Your soulmate. Ferrets.”

Baekhyun opens his mouth to argue—there are no ferrets on this card, it probably does not mean ferrets, _no_ tarot card means ferrets, what the hell—then remembers the last time and deflates. “Alright,” he says reluctantly. “Ferrets it is.”

It doesn’t seem to be exactly what Yixing wants to hear.

“Tall, male fire sign. Funny ears. Ferrets,” he says, enunciating so clearly that it’s almost aggressive. He meets Baekhyun’s eyes with a stare somewhere between piercing and pleading. _Damn, he’s really passionate about this,_ Baekhyun thinks admiringly. “Is this really not ringing any bells?”

“I don’t see what bells have to do with it,” Baekhyun says absently, mind swirling with rodents. Wait, are ferrets even rodents to begin with? What’s the difference between a ferret and a weasel?

The sigh Yixing lets out this time seems to release his soul along with it. “Nevermind, let’s move on,” he says, sounding transcendentally tired.

“Ferrets,” Baekhyun repeats wonderingly to himself, barely hearing him. “Ferrets, wow. Think of that.”

“Ferrets,” he says again a few days later, to a two parts disinterested, one part inexplicably distressed audience of three. Or, more specifically: to Kyungsoo, who he dragged to dinner from school, Sehun, who he and Chanyeol have been dragging around since college, and of course Chanyeol, whose presence around Baekhyun never really needs explanation. “He said my soulmate was ferrets.”

“Ferrets, plural?” Sehun asks skeptically. “Like, your soulmate is a specific group of ferrets? The ferret species as a whole? Or is this some new slang that none of us know, like, it was ferrets! That guy is ferrets!”

“I don’t know,” Baekhyun sighs, shaking his head. “He just said… _ferrets_.”

Sehun gives him an exasperated look. Baekhyun feels like he’s been getting those a lot lately.

“Excuse me, we’ll order now,” Kyungsoo calls to a passing waiter, not even bothering to acknowledge the conversation.

“Ah, fuck.” Baekhyun falls silent, re-focusing anxiously on his menu. In the few years they’ve worked together, Kyungsoo has grown very adept at shutting him up.

Orders made, they fall into a comfortable silence (with the exception of Chanyeol, who keeps opening and closing his mouth as if he wants to say something but is also very scared). Then, abruptly, Kyungsoo speaks, lips pressing into a frown.

“Wait, sorry, let me get this straight,” he says, “your fortune-teller, who is an old friend of you and Chanyeol’s, told you that your soulmate was tall, male, a fire sign, had funny ears, and now apparently has something to do with ferrets?”

“Uh…yeah?”

For some reason both Sehun and Kyungsoo look at Chanyeol, who immediately fixes his eyes on the far wall.

“Hey, didn’t you start a ferret club in middle school or something?” Sehun asks.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe it’s gotten this bad,” Kyungsoo mutters.

Baekhyun brightens, memories of a chubby, rat-hugging twelve-year-old Chanyeol flashing through his head in quick succession. “Oh, yeah! That was iconic, I still have pictures,” he laughs. A thought occurs to him. “Wait, Chanyeol, then maybe you’d know what the ferrets symbolise?”

All three of them turn expectantly to Chanyeol, who has at some point during the conversation started sweating profusely. Baekhyun blinks. Is the restaurant really that hot?

“Uh,” Chanyeol starts. “I don’t know, I think the connection might be more…literal than you’re expecting.” Beside him, Sehun makes a weird noise like stifled laughter.

Baekhyun scoffs. “It’s _fortune-telling,_ Chanyeol. No way it’s not symbolic. What, you think my soulmate just really likes ferrets or something?”

“It’s not fortune-telling, it’s bri—” Whatever Sehun was going to say is cut off with a sharp elbow to the gut. Baekhyun winces; Chanyeol’s elbows are fearsome weapons, he would know.

“It might be,” Chanyeol persists, ignoring Sehun’s pained groaning. “The ear thing was pretty literal, after all.”

“Yeah, but animals in tarot are _always_ symbolic, dude—”

“This is depressing, let’s talk about something else,” Kyungsoo cuts in, ignoring Baekhyun’s offended cry of ‘but tarot is so cool!’. He turns to Sehun, brow furrowed, visibly deliberating how to make the segue. “So, how’s the underwear modelling treating you?” he settles on eventually.

Sehun wrinkles his nose, looking in that moment every bit the petulant teenager Baekhyun and Chanyeol babied in college. “Do you _have_ to say it like that?”

And because teasing Sehun is always fun, Baekhyun gleefully joins in, ferrets forgotten. He’s having so much fun that he also misses Kyungsoo’s brief, harsh aside to Chanyeol, who stays somewhat nervously quiet for the rest of the dinner.

“Man, it’s always nice meeting up with you guys,” Baekhyun says warmly as they head out. “We’re getting older now, but like—let’s stay friends, you know?”

Chanyeol grunts his agreement; Sehun favours him with one of his rare, genuine smiles.

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo agrees, somewhat softer than usual. Then he glances at Chanyeol, and his voice re-hardens. “But seriously, lay off the fortune-telling, will you?”

“Fine, fine,” Baekhyun says airily, not mentioning the session he already has scheduled for the weekend. These soulmate updates are getting more and more interesting; however useful they are, they _do_ make for undeniably excellent entertainment.

“He works in music,” Yixing tells him straight this time, not even bothering with a deck. “He is a tall fire sign with funny ears who is involved with ferrets and works in music. Does this not sound familiar to you?”

“Damn,” Baekhyun says, marvelling at Yixing’s confidence. “What kind of method are you using this time? Seems like you’re getting really clear results.”

“The cards are speaking directly into my brain,” Yixing says flatly.

“Huh,” is Baekhyun’s only response. Before, he might’ve taken issue with this; recently he’s just kind of stopped caring.

 _“Does this not sound familiar to you?”_ Yixing repeats, voice sharp.

Baekhyun frowns, stroking his chin. “A tall, musical, weird-eared fire sign,” he muses. “I don’t know…is TVXQ’s Changmin a fire sign?” Then he brightens, hands clapping together in triumph. “Oh, I know! The reincarnation of Sergei Rachmaninoff, a Russian composer from the late Romantic period who was two meters tall, an Aries, kind of ferrety, and in my opinion had pretty weird—”

“Baekhyun, are you _really_ that goddamn—” Yixing breaks off, sucking in a breath. Distantly, Baekhyun hears him murmur something that sounds like ‘well, more money for me, I guess’, but no, what? That can’t be right.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, watching Yixing with genuine concern. It isn’t like him to lose his composure.

“It’s nothing,” Yixing says, resigned. Then he pauses, seeming to consider something. “Actually—you’re too depressing to do readings for right now. How about we trade some gossip instead, hmm?”

 _Again, what the hell does that_ mean? Baekhyun wonders, frustrated, but he’s too worried about Yixing to ask questions. And besides, he’s Byun Baekhyun—he’s always up for gossip.

“Sure,” he beams, Rachmaninoff be damned.

One week later, at roughly eleven PM, Baekhyun knocks on Chanyeol’s door with kimbap in his hands and a lengthy scolding at the ready. Chanyeol hasn’t answered his phone for three days, which could mean one of two things: either he’s fallen gravely ill from his awful sleeping and eating habits, or he’s been so absorbed in his work that he’s forgotten to attend to his basic human needs. Kimbap and scoldings are useful either way.

“Park Chanyeol!” Baekhyun yells, because Chanyeol’s neighbours can go fuck themselves. “Park Chanyeol, open up! Loey, open up! Yeollie! Asshole who still owes me money! Loser who peed his pants in the seventh—”

The door flies open with a hasty clatter. Baekhyun stops speaking, a triumphant smile on his face. The Chanyeol in front of him is red-eyed, scowling, and eerily reminiscent of something from _The Walking Dead_ —overworking, Baekhyun concludes.

 _“Shhh!”_ Chanyeol hisses, eyes wild. “You’ll wake up my neighbours!”

“That’s kind of the point,” Baekhyun says dryly. “You wouldn’t have even left your room otherwise, right?”

Chanyeol gives him a dirty look, eyebrows drawing together so that he looks like an angry puppy. “God, you’re so…whatever, just come in,” he says frustratedly, glancing around as if he expects the neighbours to start sprinting out with pitchforks.

The inside of his apartment is more or less what Baekhyun had expected, not that that makes it any less gross. Empty cup noodle containers litter the table, reeking of laksa and salt, and crumpled paper is strewn haphazardly across an unswept floor. The only clean space in the entire flat is Chanyeol’s home studio, although even there Baekhyun notices that the keyboard is starting to look greasy.

“Jesus Christ, Chanyeol,” he swears, staring at his friend in unabashed disgust. “And you’ve been living like this for _how_ long, now?”

Chanyeol shrugs, plucking the kimbap from Baekhyun’s hands and returning to his keyboard. “Not too long,” he says gruffly. “Thanks for the food. Now, _please,_ leave me alone.”

In the past, sometimes, Baekhyun would listen to him. Then he heard that Chanyeol was literally fainting from exhaustion, and decided he wasn’t much worth obeying.

“No, fuck you,” he snaps, snatching his kimbap back. “Drink some water, eat my kimbap, and go to _sleep,_ you useless lump of a man.”

Chanyeol turns to him, imploring. Angry puppy becomes pleading puppy. “Baekhyun, _please_ ,” he begs. “I haven’t been this deep in the zone for months, seriously, I just managed to write five music beds in the span of a single—”

“Then you’ve done enough, haven’t you?” Baekhyun cuts in sharply. “Ooh, great, you’re in the _zone_ , how cool. Now go to sleep before you end up killing yourself, alright?”

Chanyeol opens his mouth, eyes flaring, then meets Baekhyun’s glare and seems to think better of it. “Fine,” he grumbles, sitting down with a defeated whump. Pleading puppy becomes kicked puppy.

Baekhyun relaxes, glare melting into a smile. “Good boy,” he coos, ignoring the dark look Chanyeol shoots him in response.

Forcing Chanyeol through basic health maintenance is fairly simple; it’s more or less the same as directing a Sim. Baekhyun tells him where to go, redirects him when he leaves dishes on the floor, and listens to his babbling whenever he gets the urge to speak. Unfortunately however, also like a Sim, Chanyeol seems to have come out of the shower with an inexplicable burst of inspiration.

“Baekhyun, hey, let’s play something together!” he’s saying, eyes sparkling. “I can play the guitar and you can sing, just like in high school. You’re right here, after all. Come on, please?”

Baekhyun presses his lips into a firm line, resisting the urge to go along with Chanyeol’s impulses like he would’ve done a decade ago. “Don’t be stupid,” he says sternly. “You probably haven’t slept in over a day.”

 _“Please?”_ Chanyeol repeats, looking so eager and happy that fuck it—age is just a number, sleep schedules are a construct, and Baekhyun can do whatever he wants.

“Alright,” he says, a smile tugging at his mouth.

The guitar that Chanyeol fishes out of storage is in the same one he’s had since he was sixteen, Baekhyun realises. It’s a battered Yamaha FG800, body still covered in peeling stickers, a purple mark at the bottom from when Baekhyun dropped a highlighter on it. Suddenly he is overcome with nostalgia.

“Damn, look at this,” Chanyeol whistles, riffling through a sheaf of old, yellowed paper. He turns to Baekhyun, grinning. “It’s _Lucky_.”

Baekhyun’s mouth opens into a round o. “You mean…‘we like the same colours, we like the same movies’? That _Lucky_?”

“Master lyricists in the making,” Chanyeol laughs. Baekhyun joins him, feeling warm.

They’re quiet for a while, save for the rustling of paper and Baekhyun’s absent strumming of the guitar. _I’ve known Chanyeol for twenty four years,_ he muses. _And here we are, going through ancient songs as if nothing’s changed._ Somehow he finds his mind wandering to the whole soulmate business. _Is it really worth it?_ he wonders suddenly. _Chanyeol’s been my friend for two decades. Isn’t that the kind of relationship that matters?_

“Here, I found the tabs,” Chanyeol says, startling Baekhyun out of his thoughts. His grin is blindingly bright. “Wanna play?”

Baekhyun nods, swallowing down the lump in his throat. “Of course.”

The opening D chord rings out into the silence, followed by B minor, G, A, flooding the room with memories. It’s cheerful; it’s generic as fuck; it’s agonizingly sentimental. High school flashes vividly through Baekhyun’s mind.

“Being born in the same country,” Baekhyun starts, voice low, flung back years into Chanyeol’s old bedroom. Messy clothes, TVXQ posters, shitty song drafts everywhere, an overwhelming feeling of home—that’s what it was always like.

“Talking in the same language,  
We’re so lucky, it’s such a relief;  
Nothing is for certain in this world.”

It’s Chanyeol’s verse, now. He never paid as much attention to his vocals as Baekhyun did, but Baekhyun finds himself struck all the same. Deep, smooth, husky, familiar; the same voice that’s been laughing with him all of these years.

 _Jesus, why am I getting so mushy?_ Baekhyun thinks, cursing inwardly. He came here to scold Chanyeol out of hiding, not…whatever this is. Still, he can’t help the swell of nostalgia that hits him at the chorus.

“I can call your name,” they sing together,

“I can hold your hand.  
Is the sunlight falling only on me?  
Can I be this happy?”

The happy pop melody feels somewhat at odds with his thoughts. He looks up, meeting Chanyeol’s eyes, and realises that he’s not the only one.

“You can call my name,  
you can lean on my shoulder.  
Is the sunlight falling only on you?  
Can you be this dazzling?”

Chanyeol’s gaze is heavy, almost magnetic; the feeling behind them seems to have its own gravitational pull. _I_ am _lucky to have him,_ Baekhyun thinks softly. It feels like every time he’s been warm and grateful for a friendship, amplified tenfold.

“So lucky, my love.” The line is simple, both lyrically and melodically, but somehow Baekhyun has trouble getting it past his throat.

“So lucky to have you,” Chanyeol sings back.

“So lucky to be your love, I am,” Baekhyun half-sings, half-mumbles, cheeks growing hot. With some effort, he breaks the eye contact, looking down.

 _Because Chanyeol_ is _my love, isn’t he,_ he realises suddenly.

“We like the same—”

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun interrupts. The guitar cuts off, leaving them once more in silence, but the memories linger; the room seems somehow fuller now, thick with the afterimages of their friendship.

“What’s up?” Chanyeol asks, tilting his head. “Sore throat?”

“No, I…” He trails off, throat dry. Okay, maybe Chanyeol’s not entirely wrong. “I was just thinking…” Damn, how can he word this without sounding stupid? What is he even trying to say in the first place, honestly?

“Yeah?” Chanyeol says, more cautiously this time.

“I-I think you’re my soulmate,” Baekhyun blurts, then startles—it wasn’t he’d expected to say, but now that the words are out, they feel like the truth.

For a moment, Chanyeol just stares at him. “Oh,” he says quietly. Then, with rising panic: “Oh, fuck—I forgot, Yixing told me—the music—” He breaks off, ears going pink.

Baekhyun blinks. It’s not the reaction he’d expected. “Yixing? What does he have to do with it?”

“Uh, no, I mean…” The pink of Chanyeol’s ears spreads into his cheeks, and he mumbles something in what must be the quietest voice he’s ever used. Baekhyun thinks he catches the word ‘bribe’, but that’s it.

“Sorry, what?”

“ImayormaynothavebeenbribingYixingtotellyouthatI’myoursoulmate.”

The words come out so quickly that it takes Baekhyun a full ten seconds to parse through them. Then, once again, more incredulously: “Sorry, _what?”_ That is _really_ not the reaction he’d expected.

“I know!” Chanyeol cries, throwing his hands over his face as if to shield himself. “I know, it was stupid, please don’t be mad for too long!”

“But… _why?”_ Baekhyun asks wonderingly, too mystified to even consider being angry.

Chanyeol just sinks further into his seat. The tips of his ears are as red as Baekhyun’s ever seen them. He says nothing.

Baekhyun walks hesitantly towards where Chanyeol is sitting, reaching for one of his hands and pulling it aside. Behind it, Chanyeol is flushing like crazy, looking suddenly more like an embarrassed, awkward teenager than a twenty seven year old man. Baekhyun feels something in his gut twist.

“Why?” he asks again, more gently this time.

Chanyeol meets his eyes, looking unusually vulnerable. “Because I’m in love with you,” he whispers.

It should be cringey. It should be the kind of thing that Baekhyun pounces on and uses as teasing-slash-blackmail material for months. Somehow, though, he can’t find it in himself to laugh.

He drags his stare from Chanyeol’s eyes down to his nose, from his nose down to his lips. Watches as Chanyeol gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the sound. Studies the curve of his jaw, the definition of his collarbone. His hand is still on Chanyeol’s wrist. He leaves it there.

And then he kisses him, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“…Huh?” Chanyeol says dumbly, after they part.

“What?”

“No…just…huh?” Chanyeol says again, sounding utterly baffled. “Why did you do that?”

“I confessed, you confessed, we kissed,” Baekhyun says, confused. “It’s a pretty straightforward chain of events.”

Chanyeol’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “Wait, _you_ confessed? And I dunno, I confessed to both my love and a crime, are you not going to—”

“No, no, the Yixing thing is fine, I didn’t even notice until you told me,” Baekhyun says dismissively. It makes sense now that he thinks about it, he supposes; Chanyeol _is_ a tall male fire sign with funny ears who is involved with ferrets and works in music, in a way.

“You _didn’t_ —” Chanyeol stares at him. “Oh, god, you really did just confess to me, didn’t you.”

“That’s what I said,” Baekhyun says, affection shifting into annoyance. To be fair, most of their relationship is just a constant shift between affection and annoyance; kissing once won’t change that.

“Yeah, but…” Suddenly Chanyeol looks like he wants to throttle him. “How the fuck did you _not notice?”_

“Hey, it wasn’t _that_ specific!” Baekhyun protests. “It could’ve been Sehun! Or an alien! Or Sergei Rachmaninoff!”

Chanyeol stares. “The Romantic period composer?”

“Yeah!”

“Who’s fucking _dead?”_

“Reincarnation is a thing, Chanyeol!”

Chanyeol throws his hands into the air, looking ready to explode. “I _cannot_ believe I’m in love with you!” he shouts, then realises what he’s said and goes pink again. At this rate, there’s so much blood going to his head that Baekhyun starts to worry he might rupture a blood vessel—then _he_ realises what Chanyeol’s said, and goes equally pink.

“So you really do, like, love me or whatever,” Baekhyun mumbles, feeling uncharacteristically bashful.

“Well, _you_ said I was your soulmate,” Chanyeol retorts, getting angry for some reason. “If that’s not cringe culture, then I don’t know what is.”

“You are, though,” Baekhyun says seriously, looking into Chanyeol’s eyes again. “Fortune-telling aside, I’ve never met someone who works with me as well as you do. Or someone that I just—you know— _love_ as much as you.” His face feels even hotter, but he doesn’t look away. “I’m sorry for not realising sooner. You’ve always just been such a constant in my life, you know? I didn’t…” He trails off, then beams, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly happy. “Oh, whatever, man. You’re my best friend, and my soulmate, and I kind of wanna kiss you again.”

“Cringe culture,” Chanyeol repeats, but he’s smiling this time. Baekhyun’s lips meet his like a mirror, two identical grins pressing together.

When Baekhyun is twenty eight years old, he realises that Chanyeol is his soulmate. Not Sehun, not Yoda, not Rachmaninoff, not a fucking ferret. If he’d pulled the Two of Cups from a perfectly cleansed deck with his eyes closed, he couldn’t be more certain: they are soulmates.

“Now go to sleep,” Baekhyun says fondly, whacking hard at the back of his head.


End file.
